falling upwards into the sky
by redgrass-and-silvertrees
Summary: Sometimes Kaito thinks that he's in a perpetual state of falling, drifting further away from a happy normal life every time he steps off of a building. One-shot.


**In honor of the 21st Anniversary, it's not mine.**

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><p>Sometimes Kaito thought he was in a perpetual state of falling. This may not seem strange to the people who knew the magician; he spent just about as much time in the sky as he did on the ground. Even before his night job he'd always had a strange sense of peace when he was up high. The thinness of the air, the cold air pulling at the hairs on the back of his neck, it gave him a sense of completeness he rarely felt these days. He suspected it was because his love of heights was something that had been passed down from his father. He'd taken his first steps on the top of Touto Tower, had shakily held his dad's hand as he was coaxed out of an airplane for his first jump, was taught to operate just as well off the ground as on it.<p>

But then suddenly his father was gone and suddenly the thing that had bound Kaito to the most important person in his world now had separated him from everyone else. Until his father had passed, Kaito didn't think he fully understood just how different he was from the rest of his peers. He thinks that's when he really started falling, except this time he being pulled away from the Earth instead of towards it. It only got worse as he further developed his poker face and he drifted further and further away from humanity. At some point they stopped being people and instead became an audience to trick and inspire. After a while, he stopped being one of them as he further isolated himself.

The discovery that his father was the Kaitou Kid only exacerbated the issue. Now he had another thing to separate him from the people he really ought to try and be connecting with. But if he had a hard time identifying with people before, people who couldn't appreciate the smell of the air on top of the world, how could they understand his challenge to the people who stole his father from him? So he became a thief, as if that were something normal and in a way it was to him. The ease at which he slipped into his new lifestyle was unnatural. No regular high school student just becomes an internationally wanted thief on top of everyday life. He had to have more than few screws loose to even think of doing such a thing. And so he continued to fall; falling away from the bonds of normal society that had hardly contained him before and now stood no chance of keeping him stuck to the Earth.

He knows he should be bothered by it, this disconnection from reality, and he will be, just as soon as he brings his father's killers to justice. Because there is no other way he can manage his unique situation than if he were hovering just above it all. It's the only reason he's survived as long as he has. But he knows that time is running out and he needs to end things quickly before he finds he's drifted too far away with no tether to draw him back. Because now Aoko, his last real link, is starting draw away from him due to his cold behavior. He does it for her own safety, true, but also because a part of him wants her to release him. The part of him that lived on the adrenaline rush wanted to see how far he could go. The Kid has rules to keep him in place but Kuroba Kaito has never let any rules hold him down. It sometimes worries him how easy it would be for him to cut himself off from humanity and he wonders what he might become of him if he allowed that to happen.

So he continues to drift in the empty space between normal life and the place beyond reality where nothing will stop him. It's a precarious position and he knows that sooner or later the threads holding him down will snap and leave him adrift. He's given some thought to reaching out to the few people out there who share his slight disconnect with reality, find more permanent connections to keep him sane. He's lost count of the number of times he's awkwardly hovered outside Hakuba's mansion or outside the building where Kudo has been hiding. They knew what it was like to be different, to see and do things no one could understand. But in the end he always turned away. The simple truth was he didn't know either of the detectives well enough to know if their inclusion in his life would be the thing that rooted him or broke him once and for all.

One day he's going to have to make a decision, possibly the most important decision of his life. He's going to come down from his place in the sky, hang up his glider for good and properly down into life. Oh he'll still be Kaito, with his magic tricks and his antics but he'll actually belong. Or... he lets go, pushes everyone and everything he's ever known away and falls into the sun. He tries not to dwell on it, it's going to happen whether he wants it or not and the time is coming soon. For now all he can do is keep up the act, going to school by day and stealing jewels by night, fighting to find some sense of balance in his upside down life. He continues to hover away from the Earth, watching his connections slowly wear away as he is helpless to stop it. He can't tell if he'll ever stop drifting or if he'll ever find a way to land.

But maybe it wouldn't be too bad, floating away from everything... it's something to think about.

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><p>Hello and yes, 21 years ago today the world met <em>Detective Conan<em> for the first time. Exciting eh? In honor of that special day I thought I'd post a shot that's been collecting dust. Kaito and Kaitou Kid are really very interesting characters that I really want to see explored. Yes I like the silliness and the mysteriousness but Kaito has a complex personality shaped by extraordinary circumstances. I also liked the imagery of Kaito falling upwards, as if his standoffish behavior is tearing him further away from the Earth and it's people. I don't know, I just love the Kid a lot ok. Happy Anniversary DC!


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